The Best Revenge

He was right. The Yueyang Chang weren't fun to fight.

The Yueyang Chang Sect Leader came home a week early due to receiving 'damaged merchandise that he hoped to repair before the next caravan'. Xue Yang had originally thought they were acting as paid escorts. Now he knew they acquired the goods from various areas in the region, sometimes at the quiet request of local government leaders. Stock was generally stored and refined in the basement, except for a few high quality pieces that went out for immediate delivery. Usually to recurring customers of known tastes.

Guest Disciple Wuya-sanren learned this from sitting in the eaves with a newly acquired manuscript, as two elders with terrible spatial awareness (they were cultivators!  I mean, really! Xue Yang could sense people at a hundred paces using the heat, Golden core, or whatever, by the time he was six! Well, maybe more like eight, but still!)

The damaged portion was to arrive that night, with the undamaged goods being sent straight on to Qishan. This most recent shipment had been collected from Kuizhou. Apparently, the Wen Sect Leader, Wen Ruohan (according to the babies' lessons) had gotten pissy about the major sects showing him up at an Archery Contest a few weeks ago and was claiming cheating was involved. As Cheif Cultivator (a powerful position with unclear duties and rights, beyond master of games at group assemblies and rarely implimemted and never impartial mediator between sects and their puffed up nobles) he was claiming it his duty to teach the younger generation more honorable methods. 

Xue Yang wondered when he'd start looking into all of the disappearances in his territory. The place had gotten a worse reputation than Yunmeng and its Violent Lady amongst a-Yang's former circles.

But the Changs had been doing so good with the quality and frequency of their deliveries that Wen Ruohan had said not to worry about sending Chang Ping and his peers, unlike the other heirs when the Chief Cultivator called for them in two weeks. After 'appropriate messages to ensure understanding' were sent. 

It figured they'd try to play nice, if the rumors about those cracked and glowing corpses being set on Wen Ruohan's enemies were any true.

Currently, Chang Ping and his friends were out night hunting. Since Xue Yang wasn't invited with, he figured they were actually in one of the next towns over drinking. But that just gave Xue Yang more time to read.

He'd gotten better at it. He wondered if Meng Shi and Sisi would be proud. It was a weird thought to have.

He turned another page and ignored their chatter.

However, that night, Xue Yang came back to see what the fuss was about. 

He'd left a note at the board house for Chang Ping to give his dad, thanking him for the opportunity to study with them and apologizing for his early departure caused by 'unavoidable business'. Foolishly, he signed it Xue Yang. He'd wanted to make a point.

He checked out late afternoon and made a show of buying supplies and taking the road out of town. Before doubling back through the woods once it started to get dark.

Xue Yang caught sight of the caravan a few minutes before he reached the manor. Instead of coming up the main road like he expected, it wound its way up a little used side road, and entered through the back gate. The guards using minimal torches and talking in low voices. The mules' hooves wrapped in cloth to muffle them, and the tack well oiled to limit noise.

It was well after all the baby disciples and servants went to bed. Though he saw the steward and all the elder and seniors in residence, out I'm the courtyard waiting for them. All of the wagons were covered. Some with thick heavy tarps wrapped taunt around metal cages. The bars looking like grotesque rib bones in the flickering light.

'Refined' usually meant a partially unfinished craft, or something that needed to age. He'd never heard looms or the shutting of wheels, and no one in the sect that he'd seen had the calloused fingers of an embroiderer or seamstress. So he was thinking semi precious stones that needed polishing and setting. Or maybe bottles of local ale or wood that needed further treatment. Though the cages pointed towards exotic animals. Maybe one had gotten hurt, or they wanted to fatten it up and groom it before selling, in order to get the best price?

Xue Yang was silent as a wraith high up in the trees overlooking the property. Just above the rounded glow of the sect lights.

The first wagon had more or less what he expected. Furs from night hunts that other sects hadn't wanted to purify and treat themselves. A few bundles of silk a boasting unfamiliar senior had gotten for a good price in the ugly yellow of their sect. Staple goods from a farmer still paying off a debt to fill their own larders. And their most recent payment from the Wen sect - a shipment of plain, unbonded spiritual swords. Obviously of Wen make, from one of their sects' favorite dealers, though without any sect affiliation colors and in the most basic model. (The blacksmith in Kuizhou had been chatty and salty, often bemoaning his failure to hack the competition that had brought him to this 'backwater town').

There was one in the bunch that Xue Yang particularly liked. A silver Jian, that was peculiarly chipped down one side. The disciple carrying looked at the 'damaged' blade in disgust. The sword brought a feeling of warmth to his chest, an instant kinship that he never felt before. He really wanted to hold it. 

Through it all Chang Ci'ian sat at the front of his wagon like a king. Watching everything with beady eyes and a stern expression when he wasn't barking orders alongside the elders. The cart's driver, a also unfortunately familiar face, kept a hand ready on his whip. His gaze repeatedly returning to the covered cages behind him.

Xue Yang grit his teeth, and steadied himself by making faces in the dark.

Once the path was cleared of mules and heavy crushing wheels, and other inanimate goods, the back wagons were pulled up to the open basement doors. (Through which Xue Yang couldn't see from his current angle, but he saw how they opened it, and was pretty sure he could pick it later.)

One of the wheels hit a pot hole, startling a pained yelp from the cages. The driver turned wicked fast and beat the butt of his weapon repeatedly against the bars in relatiation. Making Xue Yang's jaw and ears ache in sympathetic pain. Perhaps the idiots had damaged the goods themselves? But the animal inside didn't yelp again.

Coming to a stop, the seniors got to work with the fluidity of long familiar movements. They unhooked the tarps from the farside first. Before smacking what Xue Yang thought were weight reducing talismans onto the large cages inside. Smart, since if they'd been on while traveling, they would have bounced out of the back with every bump in the road, without their natural weight to secure them.

The first cage held a small white tiger cub. It would be beautiful, if it weren't skin and bone. It didn't look like it was breathing. He idly thought it may have suffocated under all that heavy cloth during the heat of the day. It was probably the good they'd made the special trip for, judging by Chang Ci'ian's rant that 'none of the rest had breeding stock worth fattening up'. 

The next cage made Xue Yang nearly fall out of the tree.

There was a person in there. Their clothes were torn and ragged, like a homeless person. Or one of the poorest peasants. Soiled, as if they hadn't been let out of the large animal cage in days. Their hands were scraped raw from clawing at the metal. Slumped in an awkward manner in the small space. They looked weak and pale. A large bruise covered half their face. Like they'd been hit by a blunt object and knocked out. Maybe a flying object at high speeds, like the butt of a sword.

Xue Yang recognized the mark. One of Chang Ping's friends had got it in practice the other day. Goofing off and not paying attention to his sparring partner, who'd been practicing one if the Chang clan's favored moves.

Xue Yang felt a buzzing in his ears. The whispers getting louder. Dark multicolored spirals richicheting off the wagons that were saturated in it. Becoming visible enough that the cultivators below could see it, dropping the cages in alarm. 

His right breast pocket felt cold. The ice spreading out from the qiankun pouch as it wrattled in his robes. Metallic peices not clattering, but chiming through the night. He tasted iorn on his tongue.

Those cages were filled with people. People like him. Ugly, disposable, unwanted, forgettable people. Invisible.

He vaguely recognized some of them. There was the bitch who would always steal his steam buns until he bit her so hard she bled when he was five. The boy who wore the obnoxious green cast-off from the pleasure house and always stared at things that weren't there, and not in a magic sort of way. There was the old man who never remembered where he was, even when he wasn't drinking. And the lady who got kicked out of her parents' house after her boyfriend fucked her and then left after the seed took root. And old lady Feng's nephew, who had started courting the sad girl anyway. 

Xue Yang gave a wordless scream, and started chucking rocks. They sizzles, white hot through the silent humid night.  

He could fucking see them.

Not that he would ever admit it, but Xue Yang might if blacked out for a bit. Everything just became years worth of rage and pain and cold winters nights and broken promises about fucking pastries.

By the time he felt like he was in himself again, he was holding that chipped sword in his hand. There was black smoke swirling around him. With a weird piece of metal that he didnt know fuck all what it did, hovering about his head. He felt very cold, and very alone.

Chang Ci'ian was dead. As were a bunch other people in his immediate vicinity. He could hear the babies screaming in the distance. Someone, somewhere, was crying.

His face felt wet, must be the humidity. He should leave before it rained soon.

Xue Yang turned to the nearest cage and hit the lock with a loud thwack. Making the person inside cower away from him.

The sword felt good in his hand. Very well balanced, strong but light. He could feel a piece of the hear settling in it, tying itself to his core. For an inanimate object, it seemed to like him. He could of swore he heard it humming happily, in the back of his mind. It seemed to get even stronger and tougher on the more stubborn locks, the ones that drew more of Xue Yang's ire. He wondered if cultivator swords evolved with their masters.

With every cage empty, the displaced residents of kuizhou stared at him. The two young lovers clutching at each other, newly reunited. Xue Yang didn't feel anything.

But he knew he had to get out of here.

The same way he knew, that when he'd killed Chang Ci'ian, the man hadn't recognized him.

"...xiao-Wuya?"

One of the younger kids called out to him.

One of the adults started to bow. 

"Piss off."

They stared at him.

"PISS OFF!" He pointed towards the woods, and they ran.

The Feng kid hesitated, despite the girl who'd been leaning heavily on him, tugging at his arm.

"Xue Yang. You're...friends with that little street kid? The girl with the pony tail that looks like a fountain? I saw her in one of the cages they sent ahead." He paused. "They said she wasn't pretty enough for a high end buyer...they liked to joke about how long the...the lesser 'stock' would last in Sect Leader Wen's experiments. They'd tell us we'd be good, or they'd sell us to Nightless City's torture chamber, for the interrogators to practice on." He sort of nodded to himself and stumbled away.

Xue Yang stood there. He wasn't sure how long.

A gasp, that sounded half like a gag and a sob sounded behind him.

Xue Yang spun around, bloody sword raised. 

One of the junior disciples from his lessons stood there in a night shirt, unarmed. Half cowering behind the corner of the nearest building.

Xue Yang growled at him, and he ran.

Flinging the blood from his blade, he shoved it back into its sheath, and the whole contraption into the qiankun bag. It wasn't like he knew how to fly.

He glared at the chunk of floating metal, not sure how to grab it (or what to do with it, or what it was).

"Get the fuck back in here".

Surprisingly, it obeyed. Floating sedated down into the pouch, allowing him to tie it shut and place it back inside his robes.

Xue Yang patted himself down for the deed box. It was there. That was...good.

He started walking. And was long gone before the new Sect Leader Chang ever got home. Leaving only the babies, and the handful of disciples who'd been away, alive.

Stolen documents were useful. And the Chang Sect accounts made a lot more sense now.

He left a bloody trail up and down the roads between Qishan and Yueyang. The metal appearing only one other time. 

It allowed him to escape. Though he lost it. Kept the pouch and deed box though.

Perhaps it was good, even beaten and alone. Hunted. He felt better without it. Less cold.

Maybe he should have never taken it from the box.

No matter where he went with it, Wen Ruohan had been able to find him. 

Apparently the metal was called yin iorn. One of four pieces, disappointing that he didn't have more 'despite his ancestry'. Some rich guy named Chonghai killed over a turtle.

It was hard to take in context with forty eight hours too little of sleep and some guy with a glowing hand that made his inner fire want to curl up and die when he got too close, trying to rob and kill him.

Xue Yang wanted to go home.

He needed to disappear. Which was pretty hard with some new prick in white trying to follow him. As soon as he ditched the Wen. And fuck it all if mister baby immortal didn't just make a friend. 

He was starting to really hate Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen. So he laughed at them instead. (His eyes hurt).

He never did find that little punk.